snowborder714
Moderator
- 16,179
- 379
- Oct 15, 2006
-
Mechanicsburg,
Pennsylvania
I picked up a carbon fiber hood from a friend. He was getting rid of it because it had some really bad peeling and would've required a lot of work/money to get it looking nice. At the time, I didn't even know what to use it for, but figured for the price it couldn't hurt to have it.
Here's what it looked like when I picked it up.
I then picked up a new 18x10 Carbontrix carbon fiber hood vent that someone else was selling at a good price. Again, had no real plans for it, but why not? Then I picked up another hood vent from RRE (same thing, only fiberglass). This way, I had the pick of which one I wanted to use depending on what I did with the hood.
After thinking it, I decided I was going to paint the hood to match my car. I did not want to spend the money on having it re-gelled and risk having it yellow. Plus, my brother was going to paint his engine bay, so he wanted the practice. This helped make my decision to use the fiberglass hood vent and not paint over the nice carbon fiber. I could deal with the extra 3 oz. of weight of the fiberglass vent (10.4 oz. vs 7 oz. according to Mike at RRE).
My brother started by chipping off the clear coat that he could. Not all would come off that way so he then sanded down the hood to remove the rest of the clear. He used a random orbit palm sander with some pretty rough sand paper because the clear was being stubborn. I forget the exact grits, but somewhere between 80 and 300 I believe. In the end, some of the sand paper was too rough as you can see some of the marks.
The next step was to locate the holes to drill in the vent. I used hole punch reinforcements to mark them and then drilled in the middle of them using a 1/8" drill bit (size of rivets I used).
We then created a template to surround and hold the hood vent. This was used to determine the size of the vent hole, help position the vent, and keep it in place so we could make the hole marks (rivet holes and vent hole). We also used some string to help see where the front of the vent would be by not closing the hood the whole way and looking in the gap on the side.
The next step was to cut out the large vent hole. This was done using a dremel with reinforced cutoff wheel and a sawzall and cleaned up with a file. Then the rivet holes were drilled. I took depth measurements of the vent and hood to see how long the rivets needed to be. I ended up ordering 3 different lengths of stainless steel rivets from McMaster-Carr which covered all the holes I needed. We positioned the front edge just behind the radiator hoping that once air flows through it it will just rise out of the engine bay. It's also as far towards the drivers side as possible while still being on a flat part of the hood.
Then it was on to painting. The hood was prepped and sprayed with paint-matched paint (3 coats I believe) and then a clear (2 coats I believe). I spoke with a few shops/stores on how to properly paint carbon fiber, but could not get a straight answer, let alone the same answer from any two places. The best answer I think I got was I needed to use a reface before painting. The reface would give the paint a solid layer to lay on, making it nice and smooth. However, this reface needed a gun with a 3.0-4.0 size tip! The gun we have only accepts tips up to 1.8, so I wasn't going to buy another gun just for that one use. So we decided just to spray it and see what happens.
Finally, I picked up a new set of Sparco hood pins from eBay to replace the rusted set that came with the hood.
In the end, I'm pretty pleased with it. It was the first time painting something with an actual gun and I think it came out decent. Yes, there are some flaws in the hood, but I expected that. It was in pretty rough shape when I got it, so I figured it could only get better. It's going to be my track hood, so another reason not to be too concerned about looks. It's definitely got function - less weight and a big hood vent.
Here's what it looked like when I picked it up.
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You must be logged in to view this image or video.
I then picked up a new 18x10 Carbontrix carbon fiber hood vent that someone else was selling at a good price. Again, had no real plans for it, but why not? Then I picked up another hood vent from RRE (same thing, only fiberglass). This way, I had the pick of which one I wanted to use depending on what I did with the hood.
After thinking it, I decided I was going to paint the hood to match my car. I did not want to spend the money on having it re-gelled and risk having it yellow. Plus, my brother was going to paint his engine bay, so he wanted the practice. This helped make my decision to use the fiberglass hood vent and not paint over the nice carbon fiber. I could deal with the extra 3 oz. of weight of the fiberglass vent (10.4 oz. vs 7 oz. according to Mike at RRE).
My brother started by chipping off the clear coat that he could. Not all would come off that way so he then sanded down the hood to remove the rest of the clear. He used a random orbit palm sander with some pretty rough sand paper because the clear was being stubborn. I forget the exact grits, but somewhere between 80 and 300 I believe. In the end, some of the sand paper was too rough as you can see some of the marks.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
The next step was to locate the holes to drill in the vent. I used hole punch reinforcements to mark them and then drilled in the middle of them using a 1/8" drill bit (size of rivets I used).
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
We then created a template to surround and hold the hood vent. This was used to determine the size of the vent hole, help position the vent, and keep it in place so we could make the hole marks (rivet holes and vent hole). We also used some string to help see where the front of the vent would be by not closing the hood the whole way and looking in the gap on the side.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
The next step was to cut out the large vent hole. This was done using a dremel with reinforced cutoff wheel and a sawzall and cleaned up with a file. Then the rivet holes were drilled. I took depth measurements of the vent and hood to see how long the rivets needed to be. I ended up ordering 3 different lengths of stainless steel rivets from McMaster-Carr which covered all the holes I needed. We positioned the front edge just behind the radiator hoping that once air flows through it it will just rise out of the engine bay. It's also as far towards the drivers side as possible while still being on a flat part of the hood.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Then it was on to painting. The hood was prepped and sprayed with paint-matched paint (3 coats I believe) and then a clear (2 coats I believe). I spoke with a few shops/stores on how to properly paint carbon fiber, but could not get a straight answer, let alone the same answer from any two places. The best answer I think I got was I needed to use a reface before painting. The reface would give the paint a solid layer to lay on, making it nice and smooth. However, this reface needed a gun with a 3.0-4.0 size tip! The gun we have only accepts tips up to 1.8, so I wasn't going to buy another gun just for that one use. So we decided just to spray it and see what happens.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Finally, I picked up a new set of Sparco hood pins from eBay to replace the rusted set that came with the hood.
In the end, I'm pretty pleased with it. It was the first time painting something with an actual gun and I think it came out decent. Yes, there are some flaws in the hood, but I expected that. It was in pretty rough shape when I got it, so I figured it could only get better. It's going to be my track hood, so another reason not to be too concerned about looks. It's definitely got function - less weight and a big hood vent.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
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